Chinese New Year last for 15 days... and we kept having fun the entire time... here are some more activities we got to experience during this festive time.
One of the most the most famous day during this celebration is the 7
th day where they do have the
Yusheng - the salad toss. We were invited to the
Ang's for the festivities... here are Esther and Williams sweet children... you have seen them before but I can never get enough of them... so cute right? You will notice that Malcolm is holding up his
Ang Pow (red packet) that we gave him read more about them
here...but essentially a tradition where married adults give money to the children.
The dish The Singapore-based
Yusheng had fish served with
daikon (white radish), carrots, red pepper (capsicum), turnips, red pickled ginger, sun-dried oranges,
daun limau nipis (key lime leaves), Chinese parsley,
chilli, jellyfish, chopped peanuts, toasted sesame seeds, Chinese shrimp crackers (or fried dried shrimp), five spice powder and other ingredients, laced with a sauce using plum sauce, rice vinegar, kumquat paste and sesame oil, for a total of 27 ingredients. Originally, the dish used raw mackerel, although in deference to the popular wishes of customers, salmon was later offered as an alternative due to the growing popularity of Salmon.
Serving
Yusheng is often served as part of a multi-dish dinner, usually as the appetizer due to its symbolism of "good luck" for the new year. Some would consume it on
Renri, the seventh day of the Chinese New Year, although in practice it may be eaten on any convenient day during Chinese New Year (1st to 15
th Day).
The base ingredients are first served. The leader amongst the diners or the restaurant server proceeds to add ingredients such as the fish, the crackers and the sauces while saying "auspicious wishes" (吉祥话 or
Jíxiáng Huà) as each ingredient is added, typically related to the specific ingredient being added. For example, phrases such as
Nian Nian You
Yu (年年有余) are uttered as the fish is added, as the word
Yu (余), which means "surplus" or "abundance", sounds the same as the Chinese word for fish (
yu, 鱼).
All diners at the table then stand up and on cue, proceed to toss the shredded ingredients into the air with chopsticks while saying various "auspicious wishes" out loud, or simply "撈起, 撈起". It is believed that the height of the toss reflects the height of the diner's growth in fortunes, thus diners are expected to toss enthusiastically.
So here we go...
One day after soccer practice we heard some drums in the distance and we had to go check it out... we were hoping for a lion dance... and sure enough there was. Dragon and lion dances are common during Chinese New Year. It is believed that the loud beats of the drum and the deafening sounds of the cymbals together with the face of the dragon or lion dancing aggressively can evict bad or evil spirits.
